Geography

Uruguay, on the east coast of South America south of Brazil and east of
Argentina, is comparable in size to Oklahoma. The country consists of a
low, rolling plain in the south and a low plateau in the north. It has a
120-mile (193 km) Atlantic shoreline, a 235-mile (378 km) frontage on the
Rio de la Plata, and 270 mi (435 km) on the Uruguay River, its western
boundary.

Government

Constitutional republic.

History

Prior to European settlement, Uruguay was inhabited by indigenous
people, the Charrúas. Juan Díaz de Solis, a Spaniard, visited Uruguay in
1516, but the Portuguese were first to settle it when they founded the
town of Colonia del Sacramento in 1680. After a long struggle, Spain
wrested the country from Portugal in 1778, by which time almost all of the
indigenous people had been exterminated. Uruguay revolted against Spain in
1811, only to be conquered in 1817 by the Portuguese from Brazil.
Independence was reasserted with Argentine help in 1825, and the republic
was set up in 1828.

A revolt in 1836 touched off nearly 50 years of factional strife,
including an inconclusive civil war (1839–1851) and a war with Paraguay
(1865–1870), accompanied by occasional armed intervention by Argentina and
Brazil. Uruguay, made prosperous by meat and wool exports, founded a
welfare state early in the 20th century under President José Batlle y
Ordóñez, who ruled from 1903 to 1929. A decline began in the 1950s as
successive governments struggled to maintain a large bureaucracy and
costly social benefits. Economic stagnation and left-wing terrorist
activity followed.